In May, Badawi, a father of three, was sentenced to five years in prison, and will receive 1,000 lashes to be administered in public over the next 20 weeks using a seven-foot bamboo cane the width of a man’s little finger. His misdeed: admitting on Facebook that he is an atheist, a supporter of women’s rights, and saying: “The combination of the sword and the Quran are more dangerous than a nuclear bomb.”

The court also gave Badawi an additional five years in prison, fined him one million Saudi Arabian riyals (about US$266,370), and banned him from traveling abroad for ten years after release – all for the crime of setting up a website called Liberal Saudi Network, on which members of the site posted similar views. Sign the petition below…

“My curses always work! cackled Queen Witch Bratara Buzea. The 63-year-old also complained, “They want to take the nation out of a crisis using us? They should get us out of the crisis because they brought us into it.”

Of course, many of us curse the tax collector, it’s an ages old practice. The majority of us don’t use spells, curses, or magic to do so, though. That’s probably because most of us are not Romanian witches. Beliefs about witchcraft and arcane magical spells are no laughing matter in the mysterious East-Central European country. Even some modern politicians wear the auspicious color purple on days when they feel that evil spirits are near.

The real problems of economic recession and tax avoidance had reared their ugly heads in Romania by late 2010 and early 2011. It was time to enforce a new law that finally cracked down on people engaged…